Coach went on for about forty-five minutes—long enough that Duncan began to fidget and mutter wisecracks to me when he thought he could get away with it, but I wasn’t paying attention to his jokes. Coach Garcia had played for the U.S. National Team at the Olympics in 2008, and I was here for this. I'd seen his videos. Read his memoir. Coach Garcia was the biggest reason I was excited about Bancroft. The only problem was that Wesley kept glaring at me, and that was kind of distracting.

Coach finally released us at quarter to nine, but everyone was too hyped up to go straight back to their dorms. I turned my back to Wesley and let myself get swept up in conversation. A couple of the guys had even recognized me. I knew I was pretty good—I'd gotten here on a soccer scholarship, after all—but the attention still made me feel fluttery and weird.

"Duuuuuuude," hissed one of the guys. His name was Patrick, and he had stringy blond hair of a length that looked like it would be absolutely infuriating on the field. He'd managed to tie some of it back in a scrappy little ponytail, but the rest of it flew about his ears and stuck in his thick eyebrows. "I saw you at your last Championship game. That was sick."

I rubbed the back of my neck, trying not to look too smug about it and knowing I was kinda failing. That was the game where I'd scored a hattrick in under thirty-five minutes. So yes, it was pretty sick. I think that was the game that sealed the deal on my scholarship. "Yeah…"

"You're Carter Beckett?" cut in someone else. I knew he'd told me his name, but I couldn't remember for the life of me what it was. "I saw your demo reel, man. Really impressive. I mean, no, like really impressive."

Duncan clapped me on the shoulders and gave me a good-natured shake, saying, "This boy, y'all," like he'd scouted me himself and the rest of the team ought to thank him for it. I could feel myself starting to blush again. "Th-thanks," I stammered. "Listen, guys, we've got first practice tomorrow, and I think I’m going to go get some rest…"

Patrick rounded on the guy whose name I couldn't remember. "Aw, lookit that, Juan, you scared him off!"

"You started it!" Juan play-punched Patrick in the arm and mimicked Patrick's beach-bro accent: "Duuuuude sign my cheeeest."

Duncan gave me a little shove towards the bleachers and faux-whispered, "Run!" and, laughing, I jogged away to pick up the couple things I'd brought with me.

I'd just about made it to the edge of the field when Wesley stepped squarely into my path, blocking my way. I pulled up short and narrowly avoided crashing straight into his chest. He was about half a head taller than me, and I had to step back to look into his face without feeling like a little kid.

A muscle twitched in Wesley's jaw, and for a weird second, I thought he might just bite into me. "Yo," he said—not in a friendly way. His eyes glittered, green and sharp as broken glass. "Coach might forgive tardiness, but I don't."

Jesus, I thought. Who the hell pissed in your water bottle? But instead of saying it, I smiled the same smile I'd used as a kid to try and fend off bullies.. "I'm sorry, man. I was just being a stupid lost freshman."

Wesley softened not a bit. "Well, you better smarten up if you wanna stay on the team," he snapped, looming even closer and making my pulse race. "Ever heard of a map?"

Duncan came over and rescued me from myself before I could snap back that I'd been trying to decode the dumb campus map. He had a sympathetic better-you-than-me look in his eye, and I knew he'd seen the whole interaction. "Carter, you see what I did with my phone? I had it when we got here, didn't I?"

Relieved, I turned away from Wesley. The sun was going down, and I thumbed the flashlight button on my own phone to help Duncan search. "Yeah, you did. I remember we were looking at the map…"

Half an hour later, I was back outside the door to my dorm, keying my way into my room and trying not to feel anxious about the way the meeting had gone. I didn't want to be that guy who needed everyone to like him, but it seemed especially important with the team captain. And especially impossible. I couldn't even guess why Wesley hated me so much. Was it really because I was late? He hadn't been that bad to Duncan…

My roommate had reappeared inside the room. He was a skinny, long-limbed string bean of a dude in boardshorts and a pink tank top, and he was lying splay-legged on his bed with a book as technicolor as everything else on his side of the room. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, proclaimed the cover of the book in trippy neon text. Wow. I knew we were in Southern Cali, but this was a little much.

As soon as the door opened, he sprang off the bed and bounced across the room like a rubber ball to envelop me in a hug. Belatedly, I remembered that his name was Sean.

He said, "I'm Sean!" and I awkwardly patted his back. "It's so good to meet you!"

"Yeah, you too. Carter." I tried to make little fidgety motions to indicate that the hug had gone on long enough, but Sean hung on for another second before he let me go. Then he stood back and gave me a quick up-and-down.

"You play?" He pointed at my Bancroft soccer tee, face splitting into a toothy grin.

"Yeah, it's—actually kinda my main thing."

"That's so cool. My brother's on the team, too. Patrick. He's a senior."

That made some sense. I could see the resemblance, now that I was looking for it. They had the same hooked nose, the same blond hair—though Sean's was long enough to actually pull back without it going everywhere. "Oh," I said. "I just met him. He seems cool."

"Sit down, sit down. Tell me everything." Sean made a two-handed gesture at my bed that looked like some kind of weird bow and then threw himself bodily onto his own bunk. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test hopped a foot to the left as if startled.

I wasn't sure what "everything" meant, but after my icy reception from Wesley, Sean was as friendly as a high-five. We talked for more than an hour—until the sound of drumming outside interrupted us, and Sean dragged me out of the building to go investigate the drum circle that had coalesced around the base of our building. By the time we settled into sleep that night, I felt good that I'd have at least one friend at Bancroft.

The next morning at practice, Wesley was no kinder to me, but at least I didn't have to deal with him much. We were all too busy running. Coach put us through an hour of drills and an hour of conditioning training, and by the end of it, we were all too wobbly to argue with each other. Feeling blissfully at peace, I stumbled back to my dorm for a shower and then headed to the cafeteria for some breakfast.

Sean was off meeting with his advisor, so I ate my first bowl of cereal on my own. When I went back for my more, I spotted Patrick sitting with Wesley under some kind of ghastly modern painting on the wall. I paused, clutching my second helping of Cheerios. I liked Patrick, and I wanted to go over and say hey. But Wesley was right there…

I was being silly. Whatever boot Wesley had up his own ass about me, it was his own problem, and it shouldn't dictate when I did or didn't get to talk to the people who did like me. What's the worst he would do—yell at me again? So what? I didn't care.

Really. I didn't.

Probably.

I squared myself up and started in their direction, rehearsing what I wanted to say to Patrick in my head. Hey, did you know I'm rooming with your brother? He told me the story last night about how you got good at headers. I was looking at my bowl of cereal, muttering the words under my breath so I'd get them in the right order. I'd almost reached them.

Then someone scooted out their chair right in front of me.

I tripped. The cereal bowl flew out of my hands. Someone yelled something—"Oh, shit, I'm so sorry, I didn't see you—"

I saw the arc of milk, the bowl tumbling down as though in slow motion. It couldn't have been more precise or more horrible if it had been a cartoon. Then the bowl came down upside-down with a wet thunk—right on Wesley's head.